PHYSICISTS' QUOTES

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20TH CENTURY PHYSICISTS

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The following quotes by various physicists of the twentieth century are a sample of remarkable statements indicating how physics came to view reality in non-Newtonian, materialist terms. Each physicist is listed according to dates of birth.

Many of these quotes are part of the dialogues in the Elysium’s Passage series and so I have included these along with several others.

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Max Planck 1858-1947

Nobel Prize in Physics (1918)

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.

We cannot get behind consciousness.A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Science…means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an aim which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but the intellect can never fully grasp.Truth never triumphs – its opponents just die out. Science advances one funeral at a time.

Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.There can never be any real opposition between religion and science, for the one is the complement of the other.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Sir James Jeans 1877-1946

Knighted in England (1924)

The universe cannot admit of material representation, and the reason, I think, is that it has become a mere mental concept.

The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accident intruder into the realm of matter, we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.

If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have been an act of thought.So little do we understand time that perhaps we ought to compare the whole of time to the act of creation, that materialisation of the thought.

Mathematics enters the world from above instead of from below. God is a mathematician and the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.For substantiality is a purely mental concept measuring the direct effects of objects on our sense of touch.

A mathematical formula can never tell us what a thing is, but only how it behaves. It can only specify a thing through its properties.

Modern scientific theory compels us to think of the creator working outside of time and space – which are part of his creation – just as the artist is outside of his canvas.

The old dualism of mind and matter, which is mainly responsible for the supposed hostility, seems likely to disappear — through substantial matter resolving itself into a creation and manifestation of mind.

Albert Einstein 1879-1955

Nobel Prize in Physics (1921)

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.He to whom this emotion is a stranger; who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.

A person starts to live when he can live outside himselfI want to know God’s thoughts, the rest are details.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.It is clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be —– for science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgements of all kinds remain necessary.

The scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by each other.I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.

Sir Arthur Eddington 1882–1944

Knighted in England (1930)

Science has nothing to say as to the intrinsic nature of the atom. The physical atom is, like everything else in physics, a schedule of pointer readings.

Space, time and matter - and at the bottom we reach symbols. Its substance has melted into shadow.

It is difficult for the matter of fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum for everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience and all else is remote inference.

Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.

Our ultimate analysis of space leads us not to a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, but to an extension such as that which relates ‘here’ and ‘there’. To put the conclusion rather crudely-space is not a lot of points close together, it is a lot of distances interlocked.

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

There is no space without aether, and no aether which does not occupy space.

Science is one thing, wisdom is another.

Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers.

Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962

Nobel Prize in Physics (1922)

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.

Erwin Schrodinger 1887–1961

Nobel Prize in Physics (1933)

Mind is, by its very nature, a singulare tantum, I should say: the overall number of minds in just one. I venture to call it indestructible since it has a peculiar timetable, namely time is always now. There really is no before and after for mind.

The show that is going on obviously acquires a meaning only with regard to the mind that contemplates it. But what science tells us about this relationship is patently absurd: as if mind had only been produced by the very display that it is now watching and would pass away when the sun finally cools down

Werner Heisenberg 1901 – 1976

Nobel Prize in Physics (1932)

Physics can only make statements about strictly limited relations that are only valid within the framework of those limitations.

I assert the nature of all reality is spiritual, not material or a dualism of matter and spirit.

The hypothesis that its nature can be, to any degree, material does not enter into my reckoning, because we understand now that matter, the putting together of the adjective material and the noun nature does not make any sense.

Is the nature of reality material or spiritual or a combination of both? I will first ask another question. Is the ocean composed of water or waves, or of both? Interpreting the term material (physical) — corresponds to the waves, not to the water of the ocean of reality.The solid substance of things is another illusion. It too is a fancy projected by the mind into the eternal world.

We have chased the solid substance from the continuous liquid of the atom, from the atom to the electron, and there we have lost it. Actualities have been lost in the exigencies of the chase.

Insofar as supernaturalism is associated with the denial of strict causality, I can only answer that that is what the modern scientific development of the quantum theory brings us to.

In comparing the certainty of things spiritual and things temporal, let us not forget this: mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, all else is remote inference.

John Wheeler 1911 – 2008

Einstein Prize in Physics

No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.The universe does not exist ‘out there,’ independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe.

There is nothing in the world except empty curved space. Matter, charge, electromagnetism, and other fields are only manifestations of the curvature of space.In order to more fully understand this reality, we must take into account other dimensions of a broader reality.

David Bohm 1917 – 1992

Fellow of the Royal Society (1990)

The world cannot be analyzed into separate and independently existing parts — moreover each part somehow involves all the others: contains them or enfolds them. This fact suggests that the sphere of ordinary material life and the sphere of mystical experiences have a certain shared order and that this will allow a fruitful relationship between them.

The true state of affairs in the material world is wholeness. If we are fragmented, we must blame it on ourselves.This implicate order implies a reality immensely beyond what we call matter.

Matter itself is merely a ripple in this background.Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally.

If I am right in saying that thought is the ultimate origin or source, it follows that if we don’t do anything about thought, we won’t get anywhere.

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The first book of the Elysium's Passage series THE SUMMIT is now available for purchase across the world at www.amazon.com

If you wish to read about the series' intriguing Back Story, I invite you to email me at nmeyers@shaw.ca and I will send you the free ebook How it Came.

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SUMMARY OF ELYSIUM'S PASSAGE: THE SUMMIT

This the first in a series of five Elysium narrations regarding a young British philosopher named James Phillips who finds himself living in an altered state of reality while still remaining on earth.

After experiencing a near fatal fall while climbing to the summit of a remote mountain in the Andes, James awakens in a new dimension. He soon encounters two mysterious beings who provide him with a very different perspective on the nature of his existence. Over the next year, before his body recovers from the coma, he is challenged to re-examine his understanding about life’s meaning and purpose far beyond anything he previously believed, or could believe.

An engaging and sometime surreal adventure with intimations of impending romance, the narrative explores the most important questions about life, death, reality and our ultimate destiny.

The Plains of Elysium (Champs-Élysées) was described by Homer, Hesiod, Virgil and many other poets as the paradisiac afterlife realm reserved for heroes. As the title suggests, this is about a journey through a passage that leads towards Elysium’s exciting realm of existence.

The following comments are among the first Amazon reviews of Elysium’s Passage: The Summit. All are Five Stars! Others reader reviews are included below, along with excerpts from two professional reviews. To read full reviews, go to READER REVIEWS on www.elysiumspassage.com

"Quietly, gently, and without imposition, the Author unfolds the pages, creating an intricate, interlocking bridge spanning the chasm between mind and heart. Renewing, refreshing, restoring. In my bereavement, it was vigil and light…"

"A delightful mix of fantasy, reality, conjecture and humour; Mr. Meyers draws the reader into the story with a gentle narrative that captures imagination, leaving one anxious to get to the next page drawing you into his exceptional world.”

“Excellently written with an exceedingly deep understanding of this world and the next. The characters are very well written and engaging. I can't wait to complete this book!"

“Takes the reader on both a philosophical and spiritual journey, a journey that at times is both disquieting and tranquil. James, a British Philosopher can be irreverent and caustic, traits that should have left me cringing, but instead made me laugh out loud. Elysium’s Passage is a fun, enlightening and remarkable book.”

“This is a masterful fantasy, becoming a real possibility, as the reader is drawn into the story. The Summit leaves you anxious for the next book in the series, yet also leaves you totally satisfied with the world you have just visited. Genius! An exciting, yet calming, experience that is not to be missed."

"There was hardly a page on which I did not find at least one sentence worthy of hi-lighting for future reference. In addition, I thoroughly enjoyed the main character, James, whose personality and passionate verbal exchanges with the other characters, kept me coming back for more. I am reading the book for a second time while I wait for the next one in this series to be made available."

“N.G. Meyers has clearly put a great deal of research and thought into what the afterlife may look like and I like his perspective. It’s an altogether welcoming and exciting vision. The book gives one a great deal to think about and a reassuring confidence that the end of our lives is truly the beginning of life in the next. I highly recommend it."

“The humour interjected into a serious discussion makes me laugh out loud. Totally unexpected....l may be in the presence of at least a master, if not a genius. A fair ride into reality... seeking that which is unseen, yet absolutely real.”

“An engaging story of adventure embracing man's deepest desire to search for meaning and purpose, N.G. Meyers takes the reader on an adventurous thought provoking journey. This book has substance. It is a perfect blend of adventure and fantasy combined with spiritual philosophy. It ignited my imagination. The author magically weaves a good story laced with wit and humor together with deep philosophical wisdom. This book has it all!”

“An evolution in thought is triggered by many fresh philosophical themes which could inspire readers to re-think their reality and former ideologies that have dictated their lives… the author fires readers’ imaginations to view what could be possible when spirit vacates the body.”

“This is the book spiritual seekers have been waiting for. For me, it granted a great read as well as increased inspiration to live every day with a heightened sense of purpose. I highly recommend it.

“The Summit is capable of hooking readers and luring them to search for Book 2 to discover more about Dr. Philip’s surreal trek into the mysterious unknown universe. This thick book is well worth the read and to share…”

“Mind-blowing statements and speculation (‘…everyone is a non-physical thought form conceived in the Mind of God, preserved for all eternity because God’s thoughts never die…’). Many will find Meyers’ journey up the Mountain intriguing—and possibly even life-changing.” (BLUEINK REVIEW)

“In its effort to grapple with fundamental questions about the meaning of life, it raises questions that have echoed throughout the ages, including about where we come from, where we are going, who we are.” (CLARION REVIEW)